Sermon Audio

In today’s passage, “Paul asks four revealing questions and makes four stabilizing declarations: God sticks up for us, provides for us, justifies us, and loves us. God’s love is loyal, generous, just and eternal. God fights for us, God gives to us, God defends us, God cares for us – no matter what happens. God is for us in friendship, God is over us in provision, God is around us in protection, God is with us in preservation. Therefore, we should never feel opposed by God, we should never feel deprived by God, we should never feel condemned by God and we should never feel abandoned by God. May we so believe the gospel that we live in the atmosphere of God’s overcoming partnership, God’s over-compensating generosity, God’s overruling advocacy and God’s overwhelming love.” – Raymond Ortlund, Jr

Speaker: Lukus Counterman - Every church or family of churches should have a strategy for developing and deploying church leaders. Paul’s words to Timothy point us in the right direction, “And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2Tim. 2:2). Churches need to train ministry leaders as an investment into the future. Now, colleges and seminaries can supplement the training process, but they never replace the local church. Our desire at Gospel Grace is to identify, mentor, and send church leaders for purposeful multiplication in Salt Lake City and beyond. May the Lord help us in this endeavor in the years ahead.

Speaker: Lukus Counterman - This section of Isaiah was written for the people of Judah who had been taken captive to Babylon. They were stripped of their possessions, removed from their homeland, and humiliated as captives. After trudging through the dirt of exile, they had to transition into a pagan culture. They moved and were setting up life in a different place. The major problem was that they were relationally distant from their God. The temple had been destroyed and they had long ignored the word of the Lord. I think you get a picture of where the people were at if you look at Isaiah 42. In (v. 18) they are called “deaf” and “blind,” In (v. 22) they are described as “a people plundered and looted… all of them trapped in holes.” The people of Judah were like (v. 18) “plunder with none to rescue, spoil with none to say ‘Restore!’” Judah was discouraged and beyond that, they felt disenfranchised. Their lives had deteriorated to a pile of smoldering firebrands. They were spent and used with nothing in themselves. They were coals raked over and spread in the dirt, left to dwindle and die out. Many probably wondered if beauty could ever rise from such piles of ash? Into that situation God revealed himself, made promises of goodwill to his people, and clarified their purpose in life.

Speaker: Lukus Counterman - In our text this morning Isaiah prophesies to the Jews exiled in Babylon. They were people teetering on the edge of despair. It was as though the ships bearing their dreams had sailed out of sight and all that was good had been taken from their lives. Perhaps they thought, “There goes my hope. There goes my happiness. All I can look forward to now is one long death sentence.” But when our thoughts fall that way, what does God do? He comes with a message of consolation and comfort. To all who are oppressed and afflicted, to those who have shattered dreams and failing hopes God comes with a message of comfort this morning. He offers strength to the weary and endurance to the fainting. May the Lord help us to wait on him and be renewed this morning.

Speaker: Lukus Counterman - In Isaiah’s time, Israel had a long, persistent history of rebellion, immorality, cruelty to the poor, and idolatry. By the time we get to Isaiah 40, Israel was about to be destroyed as a nation. Life was insecure, with major superpowers of the day fighting for control of the region. The prophet Isaiah repeatedly warned the Israelites of God’s coming judgment. This section is addressed to those who are in exile and who later return from the exile. It is a message of comfort and consolation. As captive people in a foreign land, distress and discouragement were easy to get lost in. When the people focused on the horizontal plain, doubt and fear seemed overwhelming, so the prophet looks at the people and says, “Behold your God!” In whatever distress or difficult situations we might be facing, the call of the prophet rings true today just as it did long ago. We too must behold our God!